Ackman's Target fund down 90% since inception

William Ackman has gained a tremendous amount of publicity for his prescient calls on the subprime bubble, but his biggest long position has not panned out.

In 2007, Ackman raised $2 billion for Pershing Square IV, a hedge fund dedicated exclusively to shares of Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT). Because of a high-risk options strategy that made the fund far more volatile than the shares of the underlying stock, the fund is down 89.5% since inception, including a 40.1% drop in January alone.